Wake: A Sequel to Sleeper
by Polly Lynn
Summary: "Everything changes after she kisses him. Nothing does." Episode insert/tag for Linchpin (4 x 16). One-shot sequel to the two-shot, Sleeper.


Title: Wake

Rating: T

WC: ~2200

Summary: "Everything changes after she kisses him. Nothing does." Episode insert/tag for Linchpin (4 x 16). One-shot sequel to the two-shot, Sleeper.

A/N: Uh. Yeah. Don't know.

* * *

Everything changes after she kisses him. Nothing does.

Time stretches out and coils itself tight into moments that last forever and aren't nearly long enough. It's thrilling and heady. The warmth of his body and the sweetness of his breath mingling with hers. It's terrifying and comfortable and tentative and knowing. It's . . . _satisfying _and right.

They pull apart at the same time. Something outside that registers. Breaks into the warmth and darkness wrapped around them.

"I guess . . ." His fingers comb through her hair, placing and settling. It's practical. Familiar, like he's done it a hundred times and he knows every curve and contour. Like he knows exactly how to set her to rights. "I guess it's been a while."

"A while," she echoes. She reaches out and swipes her thumb at the corner of his mouth to catch a trace of lipstick.

He ducks to kiss her fingers as they retreat. She scowls and tugs his coat collar up, smoothing the shirt underneath. He grins and does the same for her, pulling her hair free from the twist of fabric it's caught in and straightening her lapels.

She sits back and regards him appraisingly. Nods and gestures to herself.

"Respectable," he says, and a spark leaps between them. Something low and dark in his voice. In the look he gives her that says he'd just as soon unmake her again. In the look she gives him that says she'd like to see him try.

But the world gets louder outside the door.

They're out of time. There are voices now. Conversation that sounds like wrapping up, and any second Chatty or Not-So-Chatty will drag them out of this world and back into the one that's so much harder. Any second, this ends.

She needs to say something. She wants to, but there's too much. There's everything left to say and they're out of time.

She looks up and he's watching her. Of course he is. He smiles. It's small and quiet and everything else is still there. A wound that won't heal soon. Exhaustion and giddy fear. Desire. Always that, but something else, too. He looks . . . peaceful. Centered in a way she hasn't seen in months.

She could kick herself for it. For how long this has dragged out. For how long it's taken her to realize that it doesn't have to be nothing. She could _kick _herself.

Their eyes flick toward the door, then meet again. Footsteps now. Approaching. Counting down.

"Kate . . ."

"Castle . . ."

They speak at exactly the same time and she feels her face stretch in a grin. She sees the same on his.

It's a beginning, and she wants to race forward. She wants to spill every secret between them, even if he already knows.

But it's not the time.

She looks from him to the door and back again. He does the same. A mirror, and it's so familiar. Synchrony. Potential. What will be when they're ready to let it. When she's ready.

"Castle," she says again.

He gestures for her to go on. He . . . concedes and she wants to _pinch _ him. She wants to twist his ear and shake him for this maddening patience of his. It's not fair. It's no more than she asked for. No more than she's been asking for since he took her back, but she doesn't care. None of this is fair and Chatty and Not-So-Chatty are practically through the door.

"Later, ok?"

She tries to meet his eyes, but he's far too ready with a brave smile and a nod. With a glance at the door that's cracking open wider even now.

"Later." It's cheerful. It's so fucking cheerful. "Yeah. Of course."

The door cracks wider still, like careful space opening between them as they settle back into these careful versions of themselves. She feels it all slipping away, and it's not _fair_.

She reaches for him. She catches his hand. It startles him. His eyes open wide. Wider still when she dips her head and brings her lips to his palm. When she burns away the air between them.

"After." She lets his fingers go and presses his hand back against his thigh.

He swallows hard. He's looking at her now. He can't look away. It fills her with fierce pride.

He takes a stuttering breath as the harsh, white light falls over them. He mouths the word back to her. "After."

* * *

After comes late. A lot later than she'd like. Day passes. Afternoon. Evening into night, and they've hardly had a break.

_After_ is a long time coming.

It's hard on him. The debriefing. Going over things again and again. It wears him down, even though Danberg is being decent about it. As decent as he can be, anyway, but there's a lot. Not just what happened, but what they can _say_ happened. Who they can tell what

"Sophia?" His voice is steady when he asks.

He meets Danberg's eye, but she knows him. She knows the tight line of his jaw and the strain in his shoulders. They're at the end of things now and it's taken him all this time to work up to it.

"What have you said?" Danberg asks carefully. "The docks. Your team must have asked."

He looks to Kate.

"Nothing," she says firmly. "Our people . . . they're not happy about it, but they know better than to ask."

"Nobody." Castle echoes her when she's done. A single word that's absolutely flat. "Alexis asked. I said she was nobody."

Danberg looks uncomfortable. "Mr. Castle. I'm . . . we're aware that Agent Turner . . . she visited your home?"

Kate bristles. He'd told her as much. She'd rolled her eyes. Said something sarcastic to cover how much she hated it. How much she hates it right now.

He hates it, too. He goes stiff with anger. Her breath catches. It's an instant that passes too quickly for Danberg to see, but his knuckles are white against his thigh.

"She was already there. My mother . . ." He clears his throat. He's livid. Half an inch from losing it.

Her hand twitches toward his under the table._ Fabric. _His jacket. It's all the contact she makes, but it eases something in him. Just a little.

"My mother was asleep upstairs." The anger coils again, but he's on top of it now. He shakes his head. One curt movement. "Five minutes. My daughter didn't see her. I said she was nobody. That I'd never see her again. That's all she knows."

Danberg nods. He pushes out a relieved breath. "Nobody. We go with that then."

* * *

It sits a little easier in him by the time they're really done. They make their way through the bullpen, bumping shoulders. He's lost in thought. He's tired, but there's that peace again.

It lasts them an elevator ride. A bump at the bottom and the few steps out to the street.

It lasts them until she takes a breath and blurts out a question. "So. What do you want to do?"

"Do?" His head snaps up. He was staring at his shoes. He was waiting for her to say goodnight. To renege.

"It's after," she says.

He stares. She pushes her chin out. Chews the inside of her lip.

"After," he repeats dumbly. Once it's been forever without either of them saying anything. He says it again. Eager this time, like the moment is slipping away from them. It might be. "After. Are you . . hungry?"

Her eyebrow darts up. A little flare of heat between them that could be trouble. "Food?"

"Food." He gives her a dark look and half a grin. "If you want."

"Not really." Her shoulders creep up to her ears. She blushes. "Unless you . . ."

"No." He shakes his head. Looks a little woozy with it. "I don't think I could face food."

She nods. They both nod. and it's quiet again.

"Not swimming," she says.

It just kind of . . . pops out. So much more him than her, and she wonders if it's catching. Bad jokes and cooties or something.

She looks up, startled, but he laughs. He's _laughing_. A genuine thing. She smiles. Stupidly pleased with herself. With this.

"Movie?" She turns her wrist up. The hands on her dad's watch double in the streetlights. It's late. That's all she can really tell, but it's Manhattan. There's a movie somewhere.

"Movie." He smiles. His shoulders loosen. "Perfect."

* * *

It's so stupid. The only thing playing at this time of night. It's absolutely _dumb_. But they slump low in their chairs and tip their heads back and laugh and laugh.

They share a box of Milk Duds. The big one, because she insists.

"Not food," she says when he gives her a look.

"Definitely not food," he agrees, but he eats his share. They wrestle the box back and forth, and he eats more than his share.

They stay through the credits. They talk quietly about nothing. About how dumb the movie was.

"What was it even _called_?" She stares up at the chewing gum ceiling and thinks hard.

"No idea." His head rolls her way across the back of his chair. He blinks at her. "Literally no idea."

"Tired?" she asks.

He looks it. She is. Exhausted. But the lights are up and neither of them seems inclined to move.

"I guess?" It's not really an answer. "I guess I'm tired."

* * *

They're twenty minutes from his place. More than that from hers. It's later than late and dumb to walk. They do anyway.

They're quiet. Companionable. Their shoulders bump, and every once in a while, one of them says something about nothing. Their steps fall into the rhythm of intermittent, middle-of-the-night traffic.

He seems good with it. This version of _after._ She is, too. It's not everything. It's not 's probably smart. They're both exhausted. He's still reeling. It's a good way to do this.

She screws it up, of course. They're practically at his place. Turning off Broadway on to Broome, and she just has to screw it up.

"It'll get better." It comes out too loud. She shrugs deeper into her coat. Cold suddenly. Small. "It won't . . . you won't always feel . . . "

"Like an idiot?" he supplies.

"Yeah. Like that."

He snorts. His face is tipped down. He moves easily enough, hands deep in his pockets, but she can't get a read on him.

"You're not an idiot, Castle. Trusting . . . believing in someone . . . it doesn't make you an idiot." Her own shoulders drop. "It'll get better. One day you'll wake up and you won't _feel _like an idiot."

"Well. That's a relief."

He bumps her elbow and gives her a tight smile. She bumps him back. They fall quiet again.

_That__'__s that_, she thinks.

It's a little miserable. _That__'__s that. _ It's a little not. It . . . something. It feels important. She's still working through it. What she's trying to tell him. What she'll keep trying to tell him, because it won't get better overnight.

She's glad she started now, though. Saying something. She's kind of miserably glad.

"It's not the same." His words come out of nowhere. They surprise her. He slows his pace. They're coming up on his building anyway. He stops altogether and turns to her. He studies her face. Struggling with something of his own. Something a little miserable. "She was . . . Sophia. She wasn't . . ."

"She wasn't nobody, Castle." She digs her hands in her pockets.

"No," he says slowly. "Not nobody. But . . ." He looks down like there's something fascinating about his shoes. About the sidewalk. He swallows. Makes a decision. "Royce. It wasn't like that."

Her chest is tight. Just for a second, though. Just a second and a little knot of misery breaks up and goes. _Royce_. That's what she wanted to say. What she wanted to tell him. And leave it to him to know already.

"Sophia wasn't . . . " He trails off. She looks up. He's watching her again. Apologetic. Miserable. "She wasn't everything."

"Royce," she says quietly. She looks away. Down the street. At her own fascinating shoes.

She misses him. _Royce_. She hates him and she misses the _hell _out of him. But that's not what she wanted to say. It's not what she wanted to tell him right now. She peers up at him. She makes herself.

"Royce wasn't everything, Castle. When I knew him . . ." She laughs. It pops out of her, too. Like a bad joke. It breaks up another little knot. "When I really knew him? I was in bad shape. I had . . . I had no _idea _what everything meant."

"Oh," he says, and there's a smile that starts somewhere down deep. It barely breaks the surface. It barely curves one corner of his mouth skyward. "Oh."

They stand there, silent again, but easy.

She's tired. It comes over her. It catches him, too. She sees it.

"Late," he says, and she nods. "Thank you. For this, Kate. _Thank you_." He dips his head to brush her cheek with his lips. He lingers just a little too long for it to be innocent. "Night, Kate."

He steps back, but she catches his sleeve. Her fingers fold into the fabric and hold tight. Her head tips up. She scans the sky. She takes in the strange pink streaks. Little lies from somewhere. Day is a long way off yet, but she likes them anyway.

"Morning, Castle." She takes one step into him. Ducks her head back down and catches his eye. She kisses him once on the lips. Quick and soft, but deliberate. Not nothing. "Morning."


End file.
